UN DRUG AGENCY 'DEMORALIZED AND PARALYZED'

Official's resignation letter accuses boss of breaking promises

UNITED NATIONS - The UN office responsible for combatting drugs and
organized crime is a facade of meaningless international conferences and
broken promises, according to one of the agency's senior officials in a
leaked letter of resignation.

The official accuses Pino Arlacchi, the agency's head, of travelling the
world announcing multi-million-dollar projects, then quietly cancelling many
of them.

He cites as an example Mr. Arlacchi's announcement that "he had solved the
Afghanistan drug problem" after promising in 1997 to provide $250-million to
help replace income from poppy growing. By October 2000, Mr. Arlacchi had
shut down the operation because of lack of funding, the official says.

Mr. Arlacchi, 49, denies he made any such promise and has written off the
letter as the work of "disgruntled people ... spreading false accusations,
rumours and garbage."

Dated Dec. 6, the missive is signed by Michael Schulenburg, who worked for
20 months as director of operations and analysis at the UN Office for Drug
Control and Crime Prevention (UNDCP), based in Vienna.

It emerges as Mr. Arlacchi holds a major press conference today in London to
launch the agency's 172-page World Drug Report 2000, a glossy publication
that has been more than two years in the making.

In the report, Mr. Arlacchi claims to have "developed ... a bold strategy
for a global response to illegal drugs."

In contrast, Mr. Schulenburg wrote: "I see an organization that is crumbling
under the weight of promises that it is unable to meet and under a
management style that has demoralized, intimidated and paralyzed its staff."

Mr. Schulenburg suggests that the agency gives a false impression of
activity. "Programmes that had once been announced with much fanfare quietly
slip into oblivion," he says.

It is not the first time Mr. Arlacchi, an Italian sociologist and former
member of the Italian Parliament, has been accused of falsely claiming
success in the fight against organized crime.

After suggesting at a conference in Palermo last month that the Sicilian
Mafia was on its last legs, editorialists, relatives of Mafia victims and
magistrates accused him of triumphalism.

Mr. Schulenburg's letter was leaked late last week to a newspaper in Austria
and another in Italy. It lists unfulfilled promises of more than a dozen
projects in an 11-page addendum.

During a 1999 Middle East trip, Mr. Arlacchi announced a $12-million program
through which he "hoped to become a broker between Israeli and Palestinian
authorities," says Mr. Schulenburg. But only a $300,000 project has been
launched.

"Funding for the future is highly unlikely," he says.

A recent visit to Bolivia saw Mr. Arlacchi announce a $60-million
contribution to help fund a coca-eradication program, says Mr. Schulenburg.

"Later it was explained that this figure was meant to include all past UNDCP
contributions," he wrote.

Visiting Laos in 1999, Mr. Arlacchi offered to raise $80-million to help end
poppy cultivation in the country within six years. Only $1.8-million
materialized, says Mr. Schulenburg. Mr. Arlacchi, however, says more was
raised, and that Laos cut poppy production by 30% in the first year.

Some $5-million pledged to India after a 1998 promise of "substantial
contributions" resulted in a payment of only $1-million, "and that only
after an angry letter" from India's minister for social justice, Mr.
Schulenburg says.